Energy storage is one technology that has not obeyed Moore’s law.  This is clearly the case in smartphones–I often see heavy users plug in their phones everywhere they go to maintain enough juice to last the entire day.

In contrast, my dumb phone holds enough charge to last 4 days on standby. The bottom line is that the more functionality your mobile device has, the shorter the battery life will be. These features include 4G antennas, multitasking apps, push notifications, WiFi/Bluetooth activity, background processes, and flash camera use.

I’m often asked for tips to prolong battery life on the iPhone 4S. For those without the software glitch, here are a few suggestions (some are phone agnostic):

• Shut down background apps. Back when I was writing TSR‘s, I learned that background processes with leaky memory will throttle cpu big time. On the iPhone 4S, hold the Home button until a list of apps appears on the screen. Hold onto one of the icons until they start shaking. You will also see a red negative sign. Hit the sign to shut down the apps. This is most useful in apps that require net access. On Android, you can use Advanced Task Killer.
• Disable Bluetooth when not in use. Obvious.
• Disable cell signal if you are in poor reception areas. If you’re not expecting calls or texts, this is the way to go.
• Disable push notifications on non-urgent apps.  Tricky. If you’re a day trader and rely on your texting/phone vibration for your job, you may be out of luck. You can also increase polling time.
• Disable Flash. Pertinent to Android devices. Yes, Flash is a battery killer.

There are many “disables” on this list. There are also a dozen other minor tweaks that can be found online. Be aware that apps typically aren’t screened as closely for memory leaks or routines that potentially cycle cpu time without effect. Your battery life will greatly depend on the apps you use daily.  Unfortunately we are still limited by our technology, but perhaps these recommendations will help get you through the day.

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Unless you’ve been in isolation, you have probably heard of Angry Birds, a simple yet addictive game available on most smartphone platforms. It is akin to Scorched Earth, the classic PC game in which you sling grenades at the opposition–the difference in this game is that birds serve as ammunition.

This game is ubiquitous. I see passengers in the subway and bus playing this game. My patient with cellulitis in the emergency room was playing Angry Birds while waiting to be triaged. I saw a medical student playing the game while waiting for rounds to begin.

For 99 cents, this game will occupy you for months. Get it now.

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Several months ago, I wrote about Twitter spam or a variant of unwanted traffic on Twitter. Since then, it’s still not clear to me what motive these spammers have. Several weeks ago, I posted a link to the NYTimes about swine flu vaccinations. Minutes later, I received Twitter notices that I just garnered four new followers–all of them had an odd username, like a common first name followed by several numbers.

Great. While I’m all for having a large crew of loyal followers, it does no good that my followers are all bots. I actually not sure what purpose these bots serve anyway, because none of their Twitter pages link to any spam websites. As Mashable.com mentioned in their Twitter article, spam on Twitter comes in three flavors: Twittermercials, straight cons, and clueless cons.

While most of the spamming I’ve encountered are Twittermercials, the most recent iteration of spam doesn’t appear to serve much of a purpose other than harvesting data on my activity.

Fortunately, the coders at Twitter monitor these unsolicited activities often, and most of the spam accounts have been deactivated.

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I ended up installing the Palm Pre SDK to test out the development kit. It includes the Palm Pre emulation engine, which runs from VirtualBox.

Although I’ve never used the physical hardware phone before, the software interface is very slick, similar to that of the iPhone. The snapshot includes the Web browser in action, which supports touch-dragging and zoom.

If I ever find the time, it would be interesting to develop some software for it.

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I was excited to see a hardware refresh on Apple’s iPod Touch last week, but it’s unfortunate that the new models have technology that isn’t fully implemented, such as 802.1n draft or a camera. Moreover, the clock speed increase in the new models (600mhz) and Voice Control/microphone capabilities aren’t available in the budget 8gb model.

Simply put, that is ingenious marketing.

The new Nano includes an FM transmitter and a camera, features that the neither the classic nor the touch sport. This obviously allows Apple to advertise a wide product line and focus its tech support on specific products. The base software kernel in all of its products is similar, and allows for efficient cross-platform upgrades.

As a consumer, however, I’d want everything in my portable device. As a medical professional, I’d choose the iPod Touch/iPhone to be my technology device. Obviously, Skyscape and Epocrates, two medical software companies, have already gravitated to this platform. The hardware acceleration on the Touch allows for gaming, but also image viewing (CT/MRI). We can easily modify the iPod Touch output to a projector for presentations.  The downside of this technology? Price.

The 16gb and 32gb models are similar in pricing to full-sized netbooks or 12″ thinbooks, which can arguably “do more” than the ipods. It’s a tough sell.

Which product would you choose if you could only have one?

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